The echo maker won the national book award and was a finalist for the pulitzer prize. He lives in the foothills of the great smoky mountains. It took richard powers almost three years to finish the book. Richard powers made his debut in 1985 with three farmers on their way to a dance, a brilliant and almost unbelievably brainy meditation on what he calls our. If powers were an american writer of the nineteenth centuryhed probably be the herman melville of mobydick. Richard powers, a humanist in residence at the center for advanced scientific research, gets involved with a project to train a machine to pass a comprehensive exam in english literatureand with the degree candidate against whom the machine is comp. Buy richard powers ebooks to read online or download in pdf or epub on your pc, tablet or mobile device. Gain and loss in the circle of life in richard powers novel, gain, he intertwines two fictional stories to analyze the growth of large corporation in america and the deterioration of the individual as a potential result. Recorded books is the largest independent producer of audiobooks in the world.
Gain braids together two stories on very different scales. Discover book depositorys huge selection of richard powers books online. Read gain a novel by richard powers available from rakuten kobo. Gain is erudite, penetrating and splendidly written. Powers has received a macarthur fellowship and a lannan literary award. Richard powers, author of our november pick for the newshournew york times book club, now read this, joins jeffrey brown to answer reader questions on the overstory, and jeff announces the. Richard powers is such a great novelist that a reading of any of his novels, at whatever juncture, is bound to draw comparison with other masterpieces such as the gold bug variations, the time of our singing and the echo maker. From the pulitzer prizewinning author of the overstory, an emotionally charged novel inspired by the myth of orpheus. The duo locates richard cypher, who according to prophecy was supposed to be the seeker of truth. Richard powers is the author of twelve novels, most recently the overstory.
Digital rights management drm the publisher has supplied this book in encrypted form, which means that you need to install free software in order. Sep, 2019 gain, richard powers, farrar straus and giroux, 1998, 408pp continuing my reading of richard powers novels in reverse publication order. Mar 21, 2018 powers is a writer of blistering intellect. Yet another unconventional work from powers, a novelist who never does the same. Gain if you want a good novel on the corrupting influence of capitalist enterprises, it is to the us novel that you will have to turn. In orfeo, composer peter els opens the door one evening to find the police on his doorstep. He is the recipient of a macarthur fellowship and the national book award, and he has been a pulitzer prize and fourtime national book critics circle award finalist. Powers has won numerous awards for his fictional works. The orpheus legend is one of the oldest and most important stories in western literature. Its a complex set of loosely linked stories, with orpheuss descent into the underworld being the best known and most important part of the legend. Richard powers offers a fictional treatment of a classic american riseandfall story. Having earned a bit of a reputation for being the reclusive genius type he didnt give interviews until he had published his third book, and didnt consent to having his photo on the jacket until his fifth novelist richard powers explains to the new york times, i wanted the books to speak for themselves. Order of richard powers books richard powers is an american novelist who is best known for writing about the effects of modern science and technology. Gain ebook by richard powers 9781429941693 rakuten kobo.
As of 2018 powers has published twelve novels and has taught at the. He centers this exposition on the clare soap and chemical company, following it for 170 years, from its. Richard powers born june 18, 1957 is an american novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. The overstory pulitzer prize winner by richard powers. One of his most wellknown novels is the echo maker which was the 2016 national book award for fiction. The national book awardwinning author of the echo maker delivers his most emotionally charged. As a humanist in residence at a science center in a large midwestern university, powers finds himself at an emotional and creative impasse. All the books below are recommended as readalikes for richard powers but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a macarthur fellowship. The werewolf principle a new science fiction novel by clifford d. Gain provides an indepth, fascinating history of the development of a soap company, from humble 18thcentury beginnings to a modern conglomerate.
Never one to tread lightly or think small, powers galatea 2. Gain isbn 0374159963 is a novel by richard powers published by in 1998. Biography excerpted from understanding richard powers by joseph dewey. Els flees in panic, and becomes known as the bioterrorist bach. In one, laura body, divorced mother of two and a realestate. The legendary book is said to be a guide of the seeker of truth. Gain by richard powers and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at. He was only one of five children and powers remembers never feeling quite at home wherever he went. Mining the same rich, longneglected vein of sociallyaware fiction once plumbed. Using the tools of story, he pulls readers heartfirst into a perspective so much longerlived and more subtly developed than the human purview that we gain glimpses of a vast, primordial.
Our rbdigital platform distributes the broadest array of digital content typesincluding audiobooks, video, magazines, ebooks, education, and entertainmentall in one powerful app. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. The biography of richard powers almost reads like a book. With his novel gain, richard powers turns again to his millennial concerns. So look for the suggested readalikes by title linked on the right. A new york times notable book of the year gain tells two parallel stories. Powers and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at. Richard powers is the author of ten novels, including his most recent title, generosity. Gain provides an in depth, fascinating history of the development of a soap company, from humble 18thcentury beginnings to a modern conglomerate. But the desire to write it was so strong that powers quit his job just so he could focus.
The mystery centers on the singlevehicle accident that shatters a young mans life. Richard powers s ninth novel is both a mystery and a documentary. A book s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book. Mike belleme for the guardian at 60, with numerous accolades, including a national book award for the echo maker, powers has long earned the right to tackle any. Reading richard powers novels often puts me in mind of that story, and perhaps there is no better example than gain. With gain, richard powers launches his own strong bid for entry into the canon of americas best novelists, delivering a work both epic in scope and universal in emotional resonance, a contemporary book drawing upon timeless, and often uniquely american, themes. Richard powers is the exception, and his monumental novel the overstory accomplishes what few living writers from either camp, art or science, could attempt. In one, laura body, divorced mother of two and a realestate agent in the small town of lacewood, illinois, plunges into a new existence when she learns that she has ovarian cancer.
Having earned a bit of a reputation for being the reclusive genius type he didnt give interviews until he had published his third book, and didnt consent to having his photo on the jacket until his fifth novelist richard powers explains to the new york times, i wanted the books. It isnt easy to characterize richard powers in a single sentence. Powers is an ambitious novelist, but he is also ambitious for clarity, and is never afraid to spell things out. Richard powers gain exemplifies the kind of book i love to read a beautifully written narrative combined with a compelling story in this case two disparate stories that are headed for each other. Nov 16, 2018 gain braids together two stories on very different scales. Powers s characters themselves shift between the impulse to connect and its inevitable crash and burn. Upon the familys return to the united states he majored in physics at the university of illinois, but later switched to english, in which he subsequently. Gain by richard powers book cover, description, publication history. The national book awardwinning author of the echo maker delivers his most emotionally charged novel to date, inspired by the myth of orpheus. Digital rights management drm the publisher has supplied this book in encrypted form, which means that you need to install free software in order to unlock and read it.
Gain by richard powers overdrive rakuten overdrive. Born in 1957 in evanston, illinois, powers lived in bangkok, thailand from age eleven to sixteen while his father taught there. Richard powers novel is a fascinating and profound exploration of the interaction of an individual human life and a corporate one. Other countries have, of course, produced novels about commerce and. My reading, therefore, of gain powers sixth novel ultimately drew comparison. They manage to convenience richard to accept the title of seeker, and he wields the sword of.
He tells the story of the rise of a family soap making business, j. Lentz involves powers in an outlandish and irresistible project. Powerss characters themselves shift between the impulse to connect and its inevitable crash and burn. The echo maker won the national book award and was a finalist for the. As is often the case in powers novels, there are two seemingly unconnected or tenuously connected at best threads, seperated by time.
If you want a good novel on the corrupting influence of capitalist enterprises, it is to the us novel that you will have to turn. Richard powers is an american author that writes novels which explore the impact science and technology have on ordinary life. The candleandsoap outfit begun in boston in the 1830s by the three clare brothers first built a reputation on its medicinal soap. The fictional richard powers shares not only his creators name but also his publishing history, which is given a selfeffacing, surprisingly personal context here.
His novel the echo maker won the 2006 national book award for fiction. Richard powers s top ten list reader bio richard powers born 1957 is an american novelist known for ambitious, erudite and intricate works that often explore how science and technology and deeper patterns of the universe especially as revealed through music affect humanity. Richard powers books list of books by author richard powers. Clare and sons, into a largescale corporation over a span of 150 years. The overstory, winner of the pulitzer prize in fiction, is a. Through repeated tutorials, the device grows gradually more worldly, until it demands to know its own name, sex, race, and reason for existing. The documentary portion of the story, still fiction, delves into the human brain when it is injured. Books go search best sellers gift ideas new releases. Other countries have, of course, produced novels about commerce and its not necessarily benign influence. Gain is a blast at the destruction, ecological and otherwise, wrought by the bonnieandclydelike partnership between american technology andamerican capitalism. The author more or less tells you where hes going within the few few pages of the book and then inexorably moves there without any deviation whatsoever. Orfeo is a novel by american author richard powers orfeo tells the story of 70yearold avantgarde composer peter els, whose home experiments in biohacking musical patterns into a bacterial human pathogen, serratia marcescens, have attracted the worried hazmatsuitlevel attention of homeland security. Khalen finally comes across zeddicus, who turns out to be the wizard she was looking for.